Sergio Perez 'learned a lot' about Ferrari's SF23 just by racing behind Charles Leclerc at the 2023 F1 Bahrain GP

Red Bull driver Sergio Perez stated that he learned a lot about Ferrari's 2023 challenger SF-23 while chasing Charles Leclerc for P2 during the early stages of the F1 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Mexican made a poor start from second and fell behind Leclerc during the first stint on soft tires. The Red Bull driver was relentless in his pursuit and eventually caught up and went ahead of the Monegasque during the middle part of the race.

Although Leclerc eventually retired from the race due to a power unit issue, in his post-race press conference, Sergio Perez said:

"Yeah, I actually learned a lot about their car, you know, where they are weak, where they're strong, or stronger than us. So yeah, I think I need to make sure that it stays fresh for my engineers later in the briefing."

He added:

"Yeah, I'm comfortable. I'm comfortable with the car. I'm happy. I think we’ve got some work to do. I think we, both drivers are pushing the car in the same direction, which is good. And yeah, I think it's been an amazing start to the season. Yeah, our best ever start ever, so very different to last year."

"It was really difficult to get by him" - Sergio Perez on overtaking Charles Leclerc

Sergio Perez also mentioned that it was really difficult for him to keep up with the pace of Leclerc in the opening stages of the race. He explained:

"Yeah, that was really the case, missing out to Charles on that first stint. It was really difficult to get by him. He had the new tires. So you could see the difference on that first stint. And as soon as I was getting a bit closer to him, trying to attack him earlier on, I will just deg and destroy my tires. So I had to be really patient and get my way through it."

"And once he did, I was able to drive some fast laps and, let's say, that my tires on the second stint were in better shape than his and I was able to get through. But yeah, it was just too late. It was just a few laps too many, too late, and that put us quite behind Max. Once that happened, we basically just maintained the gap throughout the race. So we had no chance to fight for the win."

It will be interesting to see if Sergio Perez can push his double-world champion teammate Max Verstappen over the course of the season and make a title bid.